Billion-dollar climate denial network exposed

A network of 91 think tanks and industry groups are primarily responsible.

An extensive study into the financial networks that support groups denying the science behind climate change and opposing political action has found a vast, secretive web of think tanks and industry associations, bankrolled by conservative billionaires.

"I call it the climate-change counter movement," study author Robert Brulle, who published his results in the journal Climatic Change, told the Guardian. "It is not just a couple of rogue individuals doing this. This is a large-scale political effort."

His work, which is focused on the United States, shows how a network of 91 think tanks and industry groups are primarily responsible for conservative opposition to climate policy. Almost 80 percent of these groups are registered as charitable organizations for tax purposes and collectively received more than seven billion dollars between 2003 and 2010.

However, Brulle admitted that tracing the funding back to its original sources was difficult, as around three-quarters of the money has been routed through trusts that assure anonymity to their donors.

While it was not always possible to separate funds designated strictly for climate-change work from overall budgets, Brulle said: "This is how wealthy individuals or corporations translate their economic power into political and cultural power."

He added: "They have their profits and they hire people to write books that say climate change is not real. They hire people to go on TV and say climate change is not real. It ends up that people without economic power don't have the same size voice as the people who have economic power, and so it ends up distorting democracy."

618 Reader Comments

Were they asked "do you believe the climate ever changes naturally" or "do you believe human activity has caused global average temperatures to rise since the industrial revolution more than any other factors".

Neither. They were asked something like "has the average global temperature risen over the last 100 years?" A substantial portion of the US disputes basic facts in this case.

Furthermore, you do realise that pretty much all the skeptics of AGW would actually fall into the 75% of Americans who think the climate is changing, given that AGW-skeptics pretty much are arguing about the causes of climate change, not whether or not it happens?

No, because slightly more than half the US public seems to accept the scientific consensus on this matter. That leaves less than half not accepting the consensus, with a quarter (or more than half that) not accepting reality. So, the majority of "skeptics" do not hold the opinion you're ascribing to them.

EDIT: edited to show my math a bit more clearly.

Unsupportable conclusion. A skeptic who entirely disputes AGW will still fall into the 75% of people who say the average global temperature has risen in the last 100 years. That is my point. If A = 0.25 and B = 0.75 and C (those who dispute AGW) can fall into both A and B, then A and B don't tell you anything about the proportion of C that falls in A rather than B. That is my point and it's elementary. I'm telling you that the huge majority of skeptics agree that the climate is changing. They dispute the causes and degree of those causes. You've brought nothing to the table that shows otherwise and I don't see why you are determined to prove such anyway. Engage with what people actually argue, not try to prove that they believe something you would prefer to argue against.

Fully supportable. Every member of C - those who don't accept the IPCC consensus - must by necessity fall into group A, the people who don't believe that the temperatures have risen. From there, it's very simple math.

Please read and understand what you are replying to. I'll explain again. Most skeptics believe the climate is changing (in fact, pretty much all do). They are skeptic over the causes. Please do not swap in your own meanings for what I write, bw (i.e. IPCC consensus). Such people obviously do not fall into group A as they do in fact believe that the climate is changing. Ergo, your survey data is irrelevant. This is the second time it has been explained. Read what I have written.

So, basically, you'd like to define "skeptic" so that it no longer means "skeptical of the scientific consensus". You'd also like your personal definition to exclude all the irrational people who have latched on to the term "skeptic" and consider themselves one. And you'd like me and, by extension, Ars, to use your personal definition.

Is that about it?

No, not even remotely. Why do you feel the need to re-phrase what I wrote in more prejudiced terms. What I wrote was very clear and short. And again, you have failed to understand the distinction between skeptical of AGW and believing that the climate never changes. There's no "re-definition", there's no "personal definition". Someone who is skeptical of AGW is simply that - they are unconvinced that humans are the primary determinant of climate change or that the degree of change forecast is accurate (or both). Nothing in that position implies that they believe the climate never changes and your figures about 25% of Americans believing that it hasn't (still waiting for a citation, btw), therefore has no relevance. A skeptic of AGW in no way is required to fall into that 25%. I also ask (again) why you are so determined to try and prove most skeptics hold a ridiculous position that is easier to argue against, though I fear that question answers itself by this point, given your repeated misreadings of my posts.

I very specifically chose the words that way because I knew that from some frames of reference, the Sun revolves around the Earth, and from other frames of reference, the Earth revolves around the Sun.

That is simply not correct. The Earth is in a near circular elliptical orbit around the Sun. The Sun "orbits" around a center of gravity inside itself - meaning it wobbles. There is NO frame of reference where the Sun revolves around the Earth.

I really don't know if I want to keep explaining basic high school physics to someone who is clearly insisting on remaining ignorant. Or just being stubborn. From my frame of reference, standing in Boston and thus revolving around the center of the Earth as quickly as it rotates, the Sun revolves around the Earth once every day. I know the idea of a frame of reference that both moves and rotates continually is discomforting for some, but it's just another frame of reference. And it's actually our default frame of reference. Whether or not something wobbles doesn't change that it revolves, because revolution doesn't imply a perfect circular or elliptical or even smooth path of motion.

If find "There is NO frame of reference where the Sun revolves around the Earth" to be a particularly telling and funny statement, because that's exactly equivalent to saying "There is NO frame of reference where the Earth revolves around the Sun." Because the very act of X revolving around Y causes Y also to revolve around X, just by shifting the frame of reference.

"They have their profits and they hire people to write books that say climate change is not real."

Ok, in the interest of fairness, can we see those that are profiting off of the doom and gloom extreme climate change proponents as well and who they hire? I'm not trying to argue that climate change isn't happening, but to just say that people are trying to profit by pushing against the climate change rhetoric is a little hypocritical. Oh, who am I kidding? We'll just sensationalize everything and make those who don't agree look bad.

No because the people saying climate change is real don't get larger paychecks by claiming so. Climate scientists get paid regardless of the reality. If climate change wasn't real they'd say so and still have jobs because climate science is never complete.

That's not actually true. I'm not saying climate scientists are biased, just that your statement is false. It is true of only a single "game". I.e. if year N of research shows AGW is not true, then payment is the same either way. But if year N shows that it is or it might be, then year N+1 now also brings in further money. The process repeats for as long as the results show alarming data that warrants more research grants. Alarm begets more funding. Lack of alarm does not. Look at the war on drugs or war on "terror" for illustrative examples.

Provide evidence that alarm begets more funding. What mechanism is in place, and what evidence for such a mechanism have you observed? Who or what in the chain of events that leads to funding being granted, influences the results of the funding so that it increases if AGW is perceived as true? What evidence is there that it has happened?

Seriously? It's a simple chain of logic. If you report that X is not a concern, you will not be given further grants to investigate the effects of X. If you report that X is a great concern, you will. That's pretty elementary. Note, nowhere have I said that any given scientist is biased. I was just replying to someone showing that their statement was wrong. Which it is. You're not seriously going to dispute the above chain of logic are you?

Provide evidence that that chain of logic actually occurs.

No. Anyone with half a brain can follow the logic of what I wrote. If you choose to believe it cannot be true without my digging through a history of academic funding, go ahead. No-one ever got a follow up funding grant to investigate the nature of the Snark, when their previous paper proved the Snark did not exist / was a boojum. Obviously a paper that says Snarks do exist however, does provide the possibility of further funding into Snark research. In each post I've re-iterated that I'm not saying it has happened in any specific case, but that I'm simply pointing out the flaw in someone's logic. If you are honest and unbiased, you'll agree that what I wrote is simple, clear and logical. You'd also admit that demanding a history of academic papers and evidence of falsifying research before you'll accept the very simple logic of what I wrote is unreasonable. Spin it any way you like, someone made a statement, I provided a short logical counter. You don't like it for whatever reason, it's still perfect logic and I'm not going to be drawn into digging through research paper histories to satisfy you when you'd only dispute the evidence anyway.

It only goes round the Earth in a very odd sort of contrived wobble if you really insist on seeing things from such an arbitrary frame of reference. For all useful purposes, the Earth and the Sun revolved around a common centre of gravity between themselves and the other planets. Can you not at least admit that you were corrected by someone with a more accurate take on things. The rest of your post is really just ad hominem. Pointing out your incorrect facts in an amusing way does not make ai# "someone more interested in gotchas than facts". Nothing in their post shows they do not value facts, least of all pulling up one of your own for lack of accuracy. You're just trying to belittle someone personally with the above rather than actually rebutting anything they wrote.

All frames of references are arbitrary. That was why I chose my words carefully not to make any absolute statement like "x revolves around y." Rather, x and y revolve around each other, depending on the frame of reference.

I also ask you to point out a single ad hominem in my posts. I'm assuming you are knowledgeable enough to realize that ad hominem is specifically an argument of the form, "you are (negative adjective) therefore your argument is wrong." Statements going the opposite direction, eg "You are wrong, therefore you are stupid" are not ad hominems but rather just insults and often factual statements. Same goes for statements that have no direction, eg "You are wrong, and also you are stupid" - just insults, not ad hominems.

Sure - here is the ad hominem to which I referred in your post: "you've kinda outed yourself as someone more interested in gotchas than facts. Facts indeed are tricky... to some people, at least" which sounds pretty insulting to me and carries no value as an argument, only as a means to denigrate someone who has disagreed with you. As to the "frames of reference" are you honestly telling me that it was in your mind at the time you wrote that actually they rotate about a common centre of gravity. Honestly hand-on-heart?

I like how the post you're quoting has the very proof that disproves your argument. It's an insult, carries no value in the argument, and only serves to denigrate. Yes. But I never say nor imply in any way that this weakens that person's argument. It's just an insult, not an ad hominem.

"Yo mamma" is an insult. Saying someone is not interested in facts is an attack on them that directly reflects on their arguments. You may not like me nor the person you insulted (and you seem quite proud of your insulting people based on the last line of your post), but at least have the decency to admit you responded to someone's arguments with personal attacks on their ability / credentials to argue by talking about how they weren't interested in facts.

You call me a name, you're insulting me. You announce that I am not interested in facts, that's being used to undermine arguments I put forth by trying to make it sound like I don't base my arguments in fact. Obviously. Now will you have the decency to admit what I've said is sound?

Hey, you want to see a real logical fallacy being called out? How about a classic case of begging the question with "Now will you have the decency to admit...?"

I never once used an insult to undermine your or others' arguments. I merely called people out for bad behavior, with NO implications to the quality of their argument. Your trying to make it seem like I tried to do that is a straw man. Hey, another real use of a logical fallacy!

Nothing in that position implies that they believe the climate never changes and your figures about 25% of Americans believing that it hasn't (still waiting for a citation, btw), therefore has no relevance.

"They have their profits and they hire people to write books that say climate change is not real."

Ok, in the interest of fairness, can we see those that are profiting off of the doom and gloom extreme climate change proponents as well and who they hire? I'm not trying to argue that climate change isn't happening, but to just say that people are trying to profit by pushing against the climate change rhetoric is a little hypocritical. Oh, who am I kidding? We'll just sensationalize everything and make those who don't agree look bad.

There is no money in it for those that oppose the super rich and big entrenched business.

Period.

You only make yourself look like an idiot and only convince morons when you make such assertions.

There are people pushing the climate change mantra for the express purpose of making money, That's what the Exchanges are all about. People who need green credits buy them from people who don't and the middleman gets his cut. If there wasn't a profit motive behind the more sensational of the climate change promoters then the solutions would be to actually reduce the greenhouse gasses causing the warming, not just sell credits to allow the polluters to continue polluting. Obviously not everyone involved in publicizing the dangers of warming are in it for profit, but it isn't accurate to say that none of them are.

No because the people saying climate change is real don't get larger paychecks by claiming so. Climate scientists get paid regardless of the reality. If climate change wasn't real they'd say so and still have jobs because climate science is never complete.

That's not actually true. I'm not saying climate scientists are biased, just that your statement is false. It is true of only a single "game". I.e. if year N of research shows AGW is not true, then payment is the same either way. But if year N shows that it is or it might be, then year N+1 now also brings in further money. The process repeats for as long as the results show alarming data that warrants more research grants. Alarm begets more funding. Lack of alarm does not. Look at the war on drugs or war on "terror" for illustrative examples.

Provide evidence that alarm begets more funding. What mechanism is in place, and what evidence for such a mechanism have you observed? Who or what in the chain of events that leads to funding being granted, influences the results of the funding so that it increases if AGW is perceived as true? What evidence is there that it has happened?

Seriously? It's a simple chain of logic. If you report that X is not a concern, you will not be given further grants to investigate the effects of X. If you report that X is a great concern, you will. That's pretty elementary. Note, nowhere have I said that any given scientist is biased. I was just replying to someone showing that their statement was wrong. Which it is. You're not seriously going to dispute the above chain of logic are you?

Provide evidence that that chain of logic actually occurs.

No. Anyone with half a brain can follow the logic of what I wrote. If you choose to believe it cannot be true without my digging through a history of academic funding, go ahead. No-one ever got a follow up funding grant to investigate the nature of the Snark, when their previous paper proved the Snark did not exist / was a boojum. Obviously a paper that says Snarks do exist however, does provide the possibility of further funding into Snark research. In each post I've re-iterated that I'm not saying it has happened in any specific case, but that I'm simply pointing out the flaw in someone's logic. If you are honest and unbiased, you'll agree that what I wrote is simple, clear and logical. You'd also admit that demanding a history of academic papers and evidence of falsifying research before you'll accept the very simple logic of what I wrote is unreasonable. Spin it any way you like, someone made a statement, I provided a short logical counter. You don't like it for whatever reason, it's still perfect logic and I'm not going to be drawn into digging through research paper histories to satisfy you when you'd only dispute the evidence anyway.

Did you really need to waste all those keystrokes typing that out? You could have communicated the exact same thing more succinctly: "I know I'm right. If you were honest and unbiased, you would agree I'm right without asking for evidence or any sort of proof that I'm right."

I would like to see citations of the studies where your logic has been followed by people %50 or more light in the noggin. No, a few articles from the Lancet will not suffice. I want names, addresses, and YouTube links to them in the process. I want MRIs to show which portions of their brains have been removed.

Until such time, I will have to conclude that while simple and straight-forward, your logic will require a simple majority of function brain matter.

"They have their profits and they hire people to write books that say climate change is not real."

Ok, in the interest of fairness, can we see those that are profiting off of the doom and gloom extreme climate change proponents as well and who they hire? I'm not trying to argue that climate change isn't happening, but to just say that people are trying to profit by pushing against the climate change rhetoric is a little hypocritical. Oh, who am I kidding? We'll just sensationalize everything and make those who don't agree look bad.

There is no money in it for those that oppose the super rich and big entrenched business.

Period.

You only make yourself look like an idiot and only convince morons when you make such assertions.

There are people pushing the climate change mantra for the express purpose of making money, That's what the Exchanges are all about. People who need green credits buy them from people who don't and the middleman gets his cut. If there wasn't a profit motive behind the more sensational of the climate change promoters then the solutions would be to actually reduce the greenhouse gasses causing the warming, not just sell credits to allow the polluters to continue polluting. Obviously not everyone involved in publicizing the dangers of warming are in it for profit, but it isn't accurate to say that none of them are.

You realize that carbon exchanges is modeled on the sulfer and nitrogen oxide (SOX and NOX) exchanges created through the Clean Air Act, right? These exchanges that were WILDLY successful in reducing the SOX and NOX emissions into the air, and which didn't really make anyone mountains of money - other than maybe very efficient power plants that were able to sell credits?

And you know that middlemen who would run the exchanges already have a wealth of places to work at in exchanges that already exist, such as CME and ICE?

How parties/companies benefit from denying climate change, is that they get to save money that may instead have been spent on upgrading facilities to comply with new tighter environmental laws. Upgrading that coal fired power plant to remove sulfates, radioactive ash and other pollutants is extremely expensive.

None of which has anything to do with "climate change". There are plenty of other reasons to phase out coal-fired power plants. Thousands of people dying every year is at the top of the list.

But there are also three great reasons to burn a lot more coal -- well lignite really -- if you're German: Tschernobyl, Fukushima, and Radioactivity is a lot scarier than cancer, heavy metal poisoning, and emphysema.

France produces less CO2 than the entirety of Germany even though Germany is the most obsessed country in the world with reducing CO2. Reason being that reduced CO2 is a nice and normal side-effect of shifting to nuclear power, which France did long ago. And they've never had a serious accident.

Or perhaps because Germany is almost twice as big and has three times as much industry as France?

Germany in 2009 was 9.6 metric tonnes per capitaFrance in 2009 was 6.1 metric tonnes per capita

(USA was 17.2, btw )

And really France should be even lower still, because they export energy to other European countries (including Germany) so their output actually includes the burden from several other nations. There's no nation that has introduced more renewable sources into their power systems than Germany (that I'm aware of), primarily Wind, and still France trounces Germany for CO2 production both per capita and as a nation. If you want to reduce CO2 (and various pollutants), nuclear is by far the best way,

Incidentally, Germany is neither twice the size or twice the industry of France. Germany is in fact smaller than France with a slightly higher population (nowhere near double). You're American, aren't you?

No I am Danish, and Denmark has more renewable energy than Germany. The modern windmill was invented in Denmark after all, and more than 25% of all electricy in Denmark is made from wind energy. Germany has sunk a lot of money into solar power, but solar has not had the same success as wind, especially in North European countries.

France btw has 50-55 million people and Germany 80-90million. Not quite twice as many but closer to twice as many as to the same. Where are you from since you are so bad at European geography?

How parties/companies benefit from denying climate change, is that they get to save money that may instead have been spent on upgrading facilities to comply with new tighter environmental laws. Upgrading that coal fired power plant to remove sulfates, radioactive ash and other pollutants is extremely expensive.

None of which has anything to do with "climate change". There are plenty of other reasons to phase out coal-fired power plants. Thousands of people dying every year is at the top of the list.

But there are also three great reasons to burn a lot more coal -- well lignite really -- if you're German: Tschernobyl, Fukushima, and Radioactivity is a lot scarier than cancer, heavy metal poisoning, and emphysema.

France produces less CO2 than the entirety of Germany even though Germany is the most obsessed country in the world with reducing CO2. Reason being that reduced CO2 is a nice and normal side-effect of shifting to nuclear power, which France did long ago. And they've never had a serious accident.

Or perhaps because Germany is almost twice as big and has three times as much industry as France?

Umm, no.

Germany - 137,847 sq miFrance - 246,201 sq mi

Germany - GDP $3.593 trillionFrance - GDP $2.739 trillion

Since when has countries ever been compared in square miles and not population? And notice I said industry, not GDP. Germany is rather unique in Western Europe for still having have traditional industry where most other West European countries have transitioned to entirely service or luxury oriented economies.

I very specifically chose the words that way because I knew that from some frames of reference, the Sun revolves around the Earth, and from other frames of reference, the Earth revolves around the Sun.

That is simply not correct. The Earth is in a near circular elliptical orbit around the Sun. The Sun "orbits" around a center of gravity inside itself - meaning it wobbles. There is NO frame of reference where the Sun revolves around the Earth.

I really don't know if I want to keep explaining basic high school physics to someone who is clearly insisting on remaining ignorant. Or just being stubborn. From my frame of reference, standing in Boston and thus revolving around the center of the Earth as quickly as it rotates

Boston is not on the equator, therefore you are not revolving around the centre of the Earth, but around a point on the Earth's axis at some point removed from the centre. There's no "frame of reference" that makes your statement accurate. Again, you have misspoken, whilst still trying to deny you got it wrong. Your original mistake was a tiny little thing, just a casual phrasing that was just not scientifically accurate. You'd be better off just admitting it rather than making further mistakes and still pretending you were scientifically precise all along.

It really doesn't and no physicist would agree with you. It revolves around a point very close to itself, offset very slightly by the gravity of the Earth. I get that you're trying to wriggle out of it by setting an arbitrary frame of reference of the Earth, but that's not actually true even then because from the Earth's frame of reference, the Sun still does not revolve around it, but "wobbles" because of the offset.

Yeah, I was mistaken about revolving around the center of the Earth. I should have said, Around the pole around which the Earth rotates.

I don't see why you keep bringing up the wobble. Revolution doesn't imply a circular, elliptical, or even a smooth path of motion. And I also don't see why you're saying I'm trying to wriggle out of anything. I'm sticking with the same fact I've been stating all along: Earth and Sun revolve around each other, depending on what frame of reference you follow.

I know the idea of a frame of reference that both moves and rotates continually is discomforting for some, but it's just another frame of reference. And it's actually our default frame of reference. Whether or not something wobbles doesn't change that it revolves, because revolution doesn't imply a perfect circular or elliptical or even smooth path of motion.

That's just patronizing. And not true in any scientific or mathematical sense. If I draw an ellipse and place myself slightly just inside the line on the right hand side (analoguous to Earth and Sun's masses) and then watch an object move around the border of the ellipse, it neither revolves around me in a mathematical or scientific sense, nor appears to do so in a colloquial sense. It merely comes close and then goes far away. My frame of reference of being just inside that line of the ellipse still doesn't make an object on that path revolve around me. It just means that I am within the circuit that it traverses.

Um, this is where you're being confused, I think. If I draw an ellipse, then anything moving along the edge of the ellipse is revolving around anything within the ellipse, no matter where in the ellipse it is. An object doesn't have to be at the center of a circle or the focal point of an ellipse to be revolved around.

I think we can conclusively say that climate change exists, and has on a global and regional scale for millions of years. We know that changes occur in cycles, with the reasons behind said cycles still being very unclear.That said, labeling AGW as 'fact' or being 'true' is flat out misleading.

It's pretty much a fact at this point, as far as science is concerned. This is why 97-98% of climate scientists are in agreement that it's us, and that we need to do something about it. We actually are as certain of AGW as we are of common descent.

You seem to be under the impression that we have little to no firm understanding of how the climate works yet, and as such we can't confidently determine whether humans have played a part. This is completely untrue, and has been for a while. We know that the majority of warming over the last 60 years is due to us, and being caused in large party by our enhanced greenhouse effect. You can get a broad overview of how we attribute human causation to recent climate change here. A more focused look at recent studies is here.

And P.S : I don't have the numbers in front me of me, but if memory serves most studies put c02 levels raising no more than 100 ppm since the industrial revolution. Far less than the 50% you claim to be not up for debate. (this is based on things like core samples, or studying organic material that existed during that time-span)

To claim there is a well-funded "network" hell-bent on denying the climate is changing is an oversimplification and disingenuous at best. Many, like myself, believe the climate is most certainly changing. We just aren't so presumptuous to believe that humans are solely responsible. The 2011 volcanic eruption in Iceland is undeniable proof that the Earth itself is capable of sudden, significant changes to our climate. We humans are just along for the ride.

Nobody thinks humans are solely responsible for any climate change ever. That'd be like saying only humans cause wildfires. It's "an oversimplification and disingenuous at best." But we are almost entirely responsible for the recent warming trend. Wildfires happen without humans sometimes, but sometimes they're caused by people. We can often tell when this is true. We humans are not just "along for the ride" this time. Believing otherwise is denial.

That's an incorrect question. The apposite one would be "what party / parties would benefit from climate change being believed to be real?"To which a ready array of answers present themselves. Not least of which being recipients of a huge number of grants to investigate the effects of climate change.

It doesn't work that way. Scientists don't get grants based on the expected answer, they get grants based on the expectation that their research CAN answer the question being studied. Whether the answer turned out to be AGW or No AGW, the ability to get a grant is unaffected. In reality science is an iconoclastic, competitive, and deeply skeptical thing. You don't become rich and famous by simply dittoing the established paradigm, proving what we already know. The opposite is true. If you can tear down the accepted wisdom with a convincing study, you are on the fast track to a Nobel Prize, comfy tenure, a lucrative lecture circuit, book deals, and you will basically never have to fiddle the knobs on a microscope again unless you just like to work. People make names for themselves by mapping out uncharted territory and showing how the Old Guys were wrong. Simply confirming something that has been known for decades is not good work for a scientist.

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The subject article is a naked ad hominem attack. Funding sources, be they political contributions or “research support”- are in fact immaterial to the validity of the results.

These organizations aren't producing "results." They're producing spin, not scientific findings. They are not publishing in peer-reviewed journals, they're publishing blogs and policy recommendations. They contribute political language and talking points, they play up certain candidates for office and play down others. They are basically marketing people, selling partisan worldviews.

That's nothing like the science funded by government grants, reviewed by peers, and discussed mostly among other experts.

Oh it almost certainly does affect climate. But as another poster said, details matter. Will sea level rise 0.5" if we don't curtail CO2 output, or 6"?

Both of those numbers are practically impossible over the next century. We're much more likely to see SLR on the order of a meter, possibly more, if we don't reign in our CO2 emissions. Possibly MUCH more. It may be helpful to keep in mind that so far, the IPCC has been underestimating SLR all along, and is probably still erring on the "too conservative" side despite revising their estimates dramatically upwards in the newest report.

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That's why you can't just go "Carbon affects the climate - don't question us". If AGW-skeptics are right, it might not only be misguided but it could be harmful.

AGW "skeptics," as in those who think we might get 6" of SLR rise for example, aren't right. If you don't like the certainty in that tone, then consider it in terms of probability. They are far, far, FAR less likely to be right than the mainstream climate scientists. When determining policy, should we go with the 3% or so who are on far shakier ground and just hope that they turn out to be correct, against all odds? Or should we go with the best available evidence and the vast majority of experts, and prepare accordingly? Even without looking at it in terms of who's likely to be correct, just look at the consequences of each side being wrong. If the "skeptics" are wrong and we follow their advice, we're headed for disastrous and permanent climate change on the same order as the shift between the last "Ice Age" and today. If the mainstream opinion is wrong and we follow their advice, we get cleaner energy, energy independence, healthier populations, a better environment, and though it will have cost us some money it does produce tangible benefits and improvements to our quality of life and technological advancement. Under most carbon pricing schemes, the poor will get subsidies to cover any increasing cost of energy too. [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/monkchips/4254681996/in/photostream/What if we create a better world for nothing[/url]?

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We're actually headed towards a cooling period according to a number of projections.

No we aren't. There are exactly zero credible projections that call for a "cooling period" long enough to be more than statistical noise. Even if the sun were to go into a new Maunder Minimum, [url=http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/06/what-if-the-sun-went-into-a-new-grand-minimum/]that would probably only delay warming by about a decade or two by the end of the century[/url].

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Is trying to reduce a warming effect a good idea? And what if, as many believe, human activity is not the primary determinant of climate change?

You presumably mean "of the current warming trend," since nobody thinks humans are the primary determinant of "climate change, full stop." It is extremely unlikely that this is true. As in, not even a reasonable possibility at this point.

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It's complicated and most certainly not a case of evil "deniers" with their heads in the sand.

"The deniers did not decide that climate change is a left-wing conspiracy by uncovering some covert socialist plot. They arrived at this analysis by taking a hard look at what it would take to lower global emissions as drastically and as rapidly as climate science demands. They have concluded that this can be done only by radically reordering our economic and political systems in ways antithetical to their “free market” belief system. As British blogger and Heartland regular James Delingpole has pointed out, “Modern environmentalism successfully advances many of the causes dear to the left: redistribution of wealth, higher taxes, greater government intervention, regulation.” Heartland’s Bast puts it even more bluntly: For the left, “Climate change is the perfect thing…. It’s the reason why we should do everything [the left] wanted to do anyway.”

Here’s my inconvenient truth: they aren’t wrong.

Yes they are.

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But when it comes to the real-world consequences of those scientific findings, specifically the kind of deep changes required not just to our energy consumption but to the underlying logic of our economic system, the crowd gathered at the Marriott Hotel may be in considerably less denial than a lot of professional environmentalists, the ones who paint a picture of global warming Armageddon, then assure us that we can avert catastrophe by buying “green” products and creating clever markets in pollution."

If you want to know why the solutions being proposed all seem to line up with the "liberal" agenda, maybe you should ask what the "conservative" solution looks like. Then, when you don't come up with one, you should ask the leading lights of the conservative side of politics. When they are silent in response, you will have your answer. The "inconvenient truth" is that the "conservatives" have ceded the field to the 'liberals" by not doing the hard work of coming up with solutions that are amenable to their political ideology. They have basically removed themselves from the debate about climate solutions by refusing to offer any. It's even possible that there isn't one they are willing to accept. Hence all the talk on the "conservative" side is either about manning up and implementing some kind of "liberal" scheme or denying that the problem even exists.

This is not a case of the "liberals" adopting climate change to further the spread of a "liberal agenda" and attack capitalism. It is the opposite; "conservatives" have refused to accept climate change because they can't or won't come up with a way to embrace it that spreads their "conservative agenda."

BTW: As a general rule, anything citing James Delingpole can be dismissed as so much ignorant blather. This is the guy who likes to imagine that the widespread mainstream scientific acceptance of climate change is secretly based on Communism.

Nothing in that position implies that they believe the climate never changes and your figures about 25% of Americans believing that it hasn't (still waiting for a citation, btw), therefore has no relevance.

Someone who is skeptical of AGW is simply that - they are unconvinced that humans are the primary determinant of climate change or that the degree of change forecast is accurate (or both).

That is your personal definition of what a skeptic is. Why is that definition especially valid? Why should we use that at the expense of the simpler "do they accept the scientific consensus or not?"

It's not my personal definition, it's a logically derived one. To be skeptical of AGW is to be skeptical of the theories that human activity is the primary determinant of climate change. Nothing within scepticism of AGW demands a belief that one reject the climate is actually changing. Therefore it is incorrect to say that skepticisim of AGW is equivalent to believing the climate never changes. There's nothing in that which derives from a personal point of view on my part. It's just a straightforward chain of logic with each step fully supported.

The only reason that could be given for saying the two positions equate would be if every member of one set (skeptics of AGW) was also a member of the other set (believes that the climate never changes) which is clearly not the case and indeed supported by your own report which says that of the Americans who believe that there is warming, 40% believe it is due primarily to factors other than human activity:

Your report wrote:

Currently, 44% say there is solid evidence of global warming and it is mostly due to human activity; 18% say it is mostly because of natural environmental patterns

(18/44 approx. = 40%).

So demonstrably, as you say only 25% of Americans reject that the climate has changed at all in the last 100 years, more skeptics believe that the climate is changing but that human activity is not the primary cause, than actually believe that the climate isn't changing (40% of 75% > 25%). There's nothing personal here - your own survey data shows that a given skeptic is more likely to agree that the climate is changing yet still be skeptical of AGW, than to believe the climate never changes.

So I hope you will now accept that it is a strawman to dismiss skeptics by showing that the climate can change, because most skeptics agree with that. Their argument is something different - the causes of climate change. And I am sure you will also agree that productive discourse cannot stem from addressing something other than what your opponent actually says. To do so is only divisive and creates resistance. If you instead, can show why AGW is correct rather than argue that they believe something they do not (especially online where you're actually telling skeptics what they believe whilst they are right there telling you they don't), then you're much more likely to convert someone to your views, if that is what you want to happen.

Hopefully that clears everything up and you'll find what I have written reasonable and supported.

"They have their profits and they hire people to write books that say climate change is not real."

Ok, in the interest of fairness, can we see those that are profiting off of the doom and gloom extreme climate change proponents as well and who they hire? I'm not trying to argue that climate change isn't happening, but to just say that people are trying to profit by pushing against the climate change rhetoric is a little hypocritical. Oh, who am I kidding? We'll just sensationalize everything and make those who don't agree look bad.

There is no money in it for those that oppose the super rich and big entrenched business.

Period.

You only make yourself look like an idiot and only convince morons when you make such assertions.

There are people pushing the climate change mantra for the express purpose of making money, That's what the Exchanges are all about. People who need green credits buy them from people who don't and the middleman gets his cut. If there wasn't a profit motive behind the more sensational of the climate change promoters then the solutions would be to actually reduce the greenhouse gasses causing the warming, not just sell credits to allow the polluters to continue polluting. Obviously not everyone involved in publicizing the dangers of warming are in it for profit, but it isn't accurate to say that none of them are.

You realize that carbon exchanges is modeled on the sulfer and nitrogen oxide (SOX and NOX) exchanges created through the Clean Air Act, right? These exchanges that were WILDLY successful in reducing the SOX and NOX emissions into the air, and which didn't really make anyone mountains of money - other than maybe very efficient power plants that were able to sell credits?

And you know that middlemen who would run the exchanges already have a wealth of places to work at in exchanges that already exist, such as CME and ICE?

Yes, I do realize that, but there is a lot of money to be made trading credits, particularly carbon credits. That's why a lot of money is being spent trying to create a new exchange and why with the long delays in getting it done some of the original investors are backing out and selling their interest. It just isn't true that the only profits to be made or protected are on the denial side, there is money to be made on the promotion side too. And to be fair there is an awful lot of ignorance on both sides. Just as the denial side pretends that "warming isn't happening and if it is, it isn't because of humans", there are those on the promotion side over-reaching as well. Actors claiming that the Haitian earthquakes were the result of warming, or politicians claiming each summer/winter that we were going to see record numbers of hurricanes/snow storms/heat waves/etc. in order to try and sell legislation. Not legislation intended to reduce carbon emissions, just legislation intended to set up exchanges so their friends can make money trading carbon credits.

The bad part of all of this is that the public has lost trust because of the lack of credibility of some of the politicians. Granted that much of the loss of trust can be attributable to aggressive and misleading PR by those profiting from industries creating the pollution, but it isn't all on them.

There's some tail-chasing going on. Jay never said "skepticism of AGW is equivalent to believing the climate never changes". You said that virtually no skeptics deny that the planet has warmed. In response, Jay pointed out that a large percentage of Americans who reject what you would call "AGW" deny that the planet has even warmed. Therefore, you cannot say that no skeptics hold this position. That's all.

I've studied physics a little higher than basic high school and I can tell you that you're wrong.

Perhaps you have studied, but you haven't learned. Every physicist (including Einstein) would agree that any frame of reference is completely arbitrary.

A frame of reference is arbitrary. That does not mean that anything else from that frame of reference that encompasses you is revolving around you. Try a simple thought experiment. You tether a tennis ball by a 20m rope to a tall stick in the ground and set it swinging. Don't worry about how it stays swinging - you have a friendly child by the pole that keeps nudging the stick with the right periodicity to keep it moving, or perhaps the tennis ball has a small rocket in it. It doesn't matter. Now you stand somewhere 18m from the pole so that path of the tennis ball encompasses you. Now you wander to a different point within the circumference. And then somewhere else. Each place of stand is a frame of reference and each place is arbitrary. This is true and this is fine. But at no point (unless you go and stand by the poll), is the tennis ball revolving around you, in either a mathematical or a colloquial sense.

Their Boston example is also wrong.

I don't see there was any call for your patronizing tone in your post. What I've said is actually scientifically correct. Frame of reference is not an equivalent term meaning encompassed by the path of another object,

No, Kludge, my parents did not christen me with digits in my name. "Harmony" spelled correctly was simply taken where I first registered. And I'm not a 'Mr' either, not that it has any bearing. And really, all this from someone called "Kludge" ?

"They have their profits and they hire people to write books that say climate change is not real."

Ok, in the interest of fairness, can we see those that are profiting off of the doom and gloom extreme climate change proponents as well and who they hire? I'm not trying to argue that climate change isn't happening, but to just say that people are trying to profit by pushing against the climate change rhetoric is a little hypocritical. Oh, who am I kidding? We'll just sensationalize everything and make those who don't agree look bad.

There is no money in it for those that oppose the super rich and big entrenched business.

Period.

You only make yourself look like an idiot and only convince morons when you make such assertions.

There are people pushing the climate change mantra for the express purpose of making money, That's what the Exchanges are all about. People who need green credits buy them from people who don't and the middleman gets his cut. If there wasn't a profit motive behind the more sensational of the climate change promoters then the solutions would be to actually reduce the greenhouse gasses causing the warming, not just sell credits to allow the polluters to continue polluting. Obviously not everyone involved in publicizing the dangers of warming are in it for profit, but it isn't accurate to say that none of them are.

You realize that carbon exchanges is modeled on the sulfer and nitrogen oxide (SOX and NOX) exchanges created through the Clean Air Act, right? These exchanges that were WILDLY successful in reducing the SOX and NOX emissions into the air, and which didn't really make anyone mountains of money - other than maybe very efficient power plants that were able to sell credits?

And you know that middlemen who would run the exchanges already have a wealth of places to work at in exchanges that already exist, such as CME and ICE?

Yes, I do realize that, but there is a lot of money to be made trading credits, particularly carbon credits. That's why a lot of money is being spent trying to create a new exchange and why with the long delays in getting it done some of the original investors are backing out and selling their interest. It just isn't true that the only profits to be made or protected are on the denial side, there is money to be made on the promotion side too. And to be fair there is an awful lot of ignorance on both sides. Just as the denial side pretends that "warming isn't happening and if it is, it isn't because of humans", there are those on the promotion side over-reaching as well. Actors claiming that the Haitian earthquakes were the result of warming, or politicians claiming each summer/winter that we were going to see record numbers of hurricanes/snow storms/heat waves/etc. in order to try and sell legislation. Not legislation intended to reduce carbon emissions, just legislation intended to set up exchanges so their friends can make money trading carbon credits.

The bad part of all of this is that the public has lost trust because of the lack of credibility of some of the politicians. Granted that much of the loss of trust can be attributable to aggressive and misleading PR by those profiting from industries creating the pollution, but it isn't all on them.

Which investors of which exchanges are backing out and when? At least in the US, there is no major carbon exchange. There are California Carbon Allowances which only apply in CA, natch, and are traded on CME, which is a long running exchange with lots of commodities, and whose income isn't significantly impacted by the CCA market. For a national exchange to be set up in the US, legislature, ie Congress, would have to pass a law first limiting carbon emissions, then setting up those exchanges, so I'm not sure how those could have investors already.

This is deeply troubling. If we know about these cycles going at least tens of millions of year back (did I understand that was the time frame that is not "too far back"?) then surely those cycles were included in most if not all modern models.

They're largely driven by changes in solar insolation due to orbital changes. Those won't have a huge effect over the next few hundred years. Shorter term cycles are part of the natural variability that emerges from the models' behavior, like the ENSO.

Now please understand this is not an attack but an honest question. How does that jive with the explanation that the last 15 years or so of warming pause was due to an unforeseen natural cycle?

I don't doubt it's an honest question, but i'm not sure what you're asking. I'll give a stab at an answer, though, and you can tell me if it's close enough. Individual model runs often show the sorts of short term variability that includes the relatively small increase in temperature over the last decade or so. (15 years requires cherry picking 1998, an unusually strong El Niño year; doing so is pretty dishonest, though i do not think you personally are being intentionally dishonest.)

What you usually see in graphs, however, is an average of multiple model runs, in which this variability is smoothed out. The smoothing essentially ensures that you don't see any behavior like the actual climate displays.

Show me the model runs that have 17 year pauses in them. Tell me the percentage of total models runs these model runs comprise.

The truth is that a plateau of this magnitude is not accounted for in the models, or it is extremely rare. Do these rare models runs with plateaus this long have matching conditions to what happened in the last 20 years? That would help gain a bit of credibility. If you want to say that the first two decades of recent observations just happened to include an extremely rare event and the models just got unlucky, then I can swallow that. I think it is more plausible that models are incomplete and are not simulating the climate very well. Do you find this explanation to be not worth debating?

It was just back in the temperature run-ups in the 1990's that climate science was declaring that a temperature increase of that magnitude could not be accounted for by natural forcings. The only plausible explanation was human generated CO2. Fast forward a decade or two and now climate science has embraced powerful natural forces to explain plateaus.

You get kind of cynical when natural forces are only plausibly responsible for temperature plateaus, and could never be responsible for juicing up temperatures in the 1990's.

"They have their profits and they hire people to write books that say climate change is not real."

Ok, in the interest of fairness, can we see those that are profiting off of the doom and gloom extreme climate change proponents as well and who they hire? I'm not trying to argue that climate change isn't happening, but to just say that people are trying to profit by pushing against the climate change rhetoric is a little hypocritical. Oh, who am I kidding? We'll just sensationalize everything and make those who don't agree look bad.

Sure. I think it is fair. However, what party / parties would benefit from climate change being real ? This is an honest question. The only industry comes to mind is the renewable energy sector which last I checked in nowhere near as successful or lucrative as their Fossil fuel counter parts.

To nit pick, they don't need global warming to be real, they only need enough politicians to claim to believe that it is real that they'll funnel some taxpayer money their way.

And the renewable energy sector is so unprofitable that green companies such as Solyndra, SunPower, First Solar, etc, rely on cronyism and government hand-outs to get off the ground and to pay their executives huge bonuses before they go bankrupt.

I would also like to see a breakdown and total of the amount of money poured into pro-climate-change research and propaganda for comparison with the totals in this article. Which side has better funding? And which side gets their funding from voluntary donations vs. forced taxation?

It's not my personal definition, it's a logically derived one. To be skeptical of AGW is to be skeptical of the theories that human activity is the primary determinant of climate change. Nothing within scepticism of AGW demands a belief that one reject the climate is actually changing.

Yet AGW skeptics have argued that humans are not changing the climate because the climate has not changed. Therefore, AGW skeptics include include those people who don't think the climate has changed.

See? Just as logical, but leads to a different answer. You need a better argument than "my logic is impeccable".

The only reason that could be given for saying the two positions equate would be if every member of one set (skeptics of AGW) was also a member of the other set (believes that the climate never changes) which is clearly not the case and indeed supported by your own report which says that of the Americans who believe that there is warming, 40% believe it is due primarily to factors other than human activity:

No, because AGW skepticism is a superset that incorporates lots of different reasons for skepticism - arguments against models, arguments against the paleoclimate data, arguments against our understanding of feedback — and yes, arguments against the instrument record that clearly shows the climate has changed.

Logically, i do not have to show that two things are perfectly equal to show that includes the second.

Currently, 44% say there is solid evidence of global warming and it is mostly due to human activity; 18% say it is mostly because of natural environmental patterns

(18/44 approx. = 40%).

So demonstrably, as you say only 25% of Americans reject that the climate has changed at all in the last 100 years, more skeptics believe that the climate is changing but that human activity is not the primary cause, than actually believe that the climate isn't changing (40% of 75% > 25%).

"This led to a bizarre situation where oil companies both founded and funded ecology-related organisations, including the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies, Nature Conservancy, Greenpeace, Sierra Club and others to protest the peaceful use of nuclear power."

This is deeply troubling. If we know about these cycles going at least tens of millions of year back (did I understand that was the time frame that is not "too far back"?) then surely those cycles were included in most if not all modern models.

They're largely driven by changes in solar insolation due to orbital changes. Those won't have a huge effect over the next few hundred years. Shorter term cycles are part of the natural variability that emerges from the models' behavior, like the ENSO.

Now please understand this is not an attack but an honest question. How does that jive with the explanation that the last 15 years or so of warming pause was due to an unforeseen natural cycle?

I don't doubt it's an honest question, but i'm not sure what you're asking. I'll give a stab at an answer, though, and you can tell me if it's close enough. Individual model runs often show the sorts of short term variability that includes the relatively small increase in temperature over the last decade or so. (15 years requires cherry picking 1998, an unusually strong El Niño year; doing so is pretty dishonest, though i do not think you personally are being intentionally dishonest.)

What you usually see in graphs, however, is an average of multiple model runs, in which this variability is smoothed out. The smoothing essentially ensures that you don't see any behavior like the actual climate displays.

We are upset not because we do this for free, its because you believe that we (humans) are responsible for "climate change" or "global cooling" or "global warming" or whatever buzzwords are in season at the time.

The difference between a political movement and a conspiracy should be more than whether or not you agree with them.

This statement presents a false dichotomy - the two are not the same in any way. One of these is simply a group of people. To be a conspiracy, one has to enter into "an agreement between persons to deceive, mislead, or defraud others of their legal rights, or to gain an unfair advantage". I doesn't matter whether I agree or disagree with them, the two groups are simply not the same.

So then to the article in question...

I believe this research suggests that the "defraud" portion is beyond doubt - indeed, I don't believe you're debating this point.

The question remains open whether or not the billionaires in question had any sort of pre-stated agreement (or similar).

In either event, you may or may not have a conspiracy, but in either case, you have nothing at all like a political movement. Except maybe Nixon :-)

This is deeply troubling. If we know about these cycles going at least tens of millions of year back (did I understand that was the time frame that is not "too far back"?) then surely those cycles were included in most if not all modern models.

They're largely driven by changes in solar insolation due to orbital changes. Those won't have a huge effect over the next few hundred years. Shorter term cycles are part of the natural variability that emerges from the models' behavior, like the ENSO.

Now please understand this is not an attack but an honest question. How does that jive with the explanation that the last 15 years or so of warming pause was due to an unforeseen natural cycle?

I don't doubt it's an honest question, but i'm not sure what you're asking. I'll give a stab at an answer, though, and you can tell me if it's close enough. Individual model runs often show the sorts of short term variability that includes the relatively small increase in temperature over the last decade or so. (15 years requires cherry picking 1998, an unusually strong El Niño year; doing so is pretty dishonest, though i do not think you personally are being intentionally dishonest.)

What you usually see in graphs, however, is an average of multiple model runs, in which this variability is smoothed out. The smoothing essentially ensures that you don't see any behavior like the actual climate displays.

What I want to know is how much has been spent on climate change research since the 80's.. I bet if rivals if not surpasses anything being talked about here..

This implied equivalency between a dollar spent on hard data and reproducible results and a dollar spent on focus testing and framing the discourse really bothers me.

You're making the assumption that there are two distinct sides to this debate (there is climate change, or there isn't), and that one side (the "is climate change" side) uses only pure science, while the other completely eschews it. When you start with an assumption that one side is right and the other wrong, that informs what types of experiments you're willing to try, what types of models you're willing to use for testing your hypotheses, and what types of data you're going to collect. It may not influence the values of that data, obviously, but when you're already weeding out potential variables because those variables happen to by highly prized by "the other side", that's going to bias your results.

The problem here is that both "sides" do perform hard science. Both sides also exert political pressure, flow money to win influential scientists and spokesmen to their camps, and distort data to their own ends. One side (the "is climate change" side) has a benefit of far more peer reviews, so the well-reviewed papers tend to be considerably more rigid than the well-reviewed papers of the other side... but both sides have their share of rejects as well. And, indeed, there's profit and prestige to be made from both sides.

I don't think anyone can say there's "zero impact" from humans on the climate... but there shouldn't be two camps. There should honestly be one camp, attempting to discover the degree to which humans (or, for that matter, any other organism of sufficient number) affect the climate, the threat level those effects pose, and what mitigating factors can be undertaken to reduce those threats. If I listened to climate change scientists of the 70's, I'd expect an ice age right now. In the 90's, I'd be expecting most of the east and west coasts of the US to be underwater right now. Each generation's climate change scientists have made big names with dire predictions that have not shown themselves to be true. And while we have a better grasp on the situation (or, at least, like to think we do) there are still people predicting that there will be no polar ice remaining in 20 years.

Part of the problem, I think, is that there's too much noise on both sides for anyone that is not extremely well versed in climate science to know the difference between headline-grabbing alarmism and actual science (and by "extremely well-versed", I mean someone who has actually worked with climate models, and has been published at least a time or two... I'm not one of those "extremely well-versed" individuals, obviously). So us lay-people generally camp up in one camp or the other, and grab anything that remotely looks relevant to the camp we've chosen and tout it as "SCIENCE!!!"... when in fact it might not be (and likely isn't). Then we use this "SCIENCE!!!" to bash those in the enemy camp over the head... obviously our "SCIENCE!!!" is superior to their "SCIENCE!!!" because their science wasn't published in Nature, or because their science was done by a think tank instead of a university, or because some guy somewhere wrote a paper that debunked it (that hasn't yet been in circulation long enough to, itself, be debunked). And we take that little snapshot of time that affirms our belief, and move on, not tracking our arguments to see if, perhaps, that paper we cited might get debunked later, or that think tank might receive some prestigious award for their efforts, or that journal might issue a retraction of some sort. In the end, all we have is our beliefs, because we sit here arguing about very complex science without actually having done any of that science ourselves, so we pick and sort to find the articles that back up our bias, and then build our arguments by putting our sources up on pedastals while tearing down the sources of the opposing camp.

In the end... I'd be surprised if there were more than half a dozen Ars readers that have ever published hard science papers for or against climate change. The rest of us are just parrots, repeating what we read sometime in the past about something vaguely relevant in the hopes of being convincing debaters rather than effective scientists.

Thanks for this. I have not seen this particular story. If I read the results correctly:

Probability of 10 year pause:

RCP4.5 = 35%RCP8.5 = 3%

Probability of 20 year pause:

RCP4.5 = 25%RCP8.5 = 10% (???)

Probability of 30 year pause:

RCP4.5 = 20%RCP8.5 = 0%

I'm just visually adding up the number of 0 and below here. The RCP8.5 results don't make a lot of sense as it seems 20 years pauses are more likely then 10 year pauses?

No. Those bars represent the likelihood of trends per decade over periods that cover from 1-3 decades. They are not probabilities of pauses lasting 1-3 decades.

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Now RCP4.5 is about a climate sensitivity of 2C, and RCP8.5 is 4.5C

No. Both RCPs use the exact same range of climate sensitivity. They only differ in how radiative forcing by emissions and other factors look over time, i.e. by scenarios that use high or low emissions and such.

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Now you got to admit, that using the plateau statistics, the probabilities favor lower sensitivities, even lower than 2C and that RCP8.5 is looking pretty unlikely at this point.